ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) in the ST

The more I think about it the more I strongly beleive Luke will die protecting Rey. If he disposes of the Knights of Ren easily and protects Rey it will become clear to Snoke she is his blindspot. He's simply too powerful in the end here to not be lured into a trap. There's no tension if he's fighting alongside her and both are just absolutely destroying everyone.

The only way I see him surviving is if Snoke, himself, reveals himself to be more powerful than everyone somehow or if he unleashes some kind of Carbonite Sith army to keep them busy. The threat needs to increase massively here to keep him busy in a side story he can survive. Otherwise, he'll be lured into a trap to protect Rey designed deliberately for him. About the most Luke fans could hope for then is that he's somehow literally trapped by some kind of Sith relic that doesn't kill him but holds him indefinitely or something along those lines. If they can't do something like that he's almost certainly going to be killed off and join his friends and family as A Force ghost.

It's too easy otherwise.

 

nightangel. I'm telling you. Every scrap of rumor we get (other than the Luke lost his marbles one) points to Luke being very special in the ST. He definitely will be around for ep9. And I think you'll be having a very happy Christmas in 2017. Same old Luke, you'll see.

 

No thanks. I'd bet the vast majority want Luke to survive.

 

that's like saying there is no tension with having Aragorn and Gandalf fight together.

besides the MSW rumors had Rey seemingly lose to Kylo in VIII
as for the Knights of Ren the fact that Luke supposedly beats them all by himself and none of them use lightsabers is your explanation, they aren't that strong. If Kylo is their master than it means they are weaker than him. So of course Luke will beat them.

what I want/hope to see in IX is
Rey vs Kylo and Luke vs Snoke.
Instead of redeemed Kylo and Rey vs Snoke or any other scenario.

 

The easiest solution to the problem of why doesn't Luke just kill Kylo himself is that Luke DOES NOT want to kill Kylo, but Rey does. And there's your tension. He's training her not to kill him but to save him, but she just wants to murder the monster. This is much more in line with what we saw from Luke in ROTJ and from Rey in TFA. She almost killed Kylo in their first fight, and she could have but she hesitated just slightly before the earthquake.

I'd like to see this play out as an inverse of the OT. Yoda and Ben were just like "confront Vader, kill him" but I think Luke will have a different approach, because he witnessed Vader become Anakin again and also for Leia's sake he wants to at least try to save her son, and yet Rey will not understand it.

 

Anyways, I'm not sure if this has been posted before but these are the interesting tidbits I have recently learnt from the Princess Leia novel, "Star Wars: Bloodline":
- The book takes place 6 years before 'The Force Awakens'
- Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo were still master & apprentice. They were said to be travelling around the galaxy.
- Drawing from these information and this paragraph from page 240: "Skywalker had been so long away on his strange quest for the lore of the Jedi that he no longer had much influence outside his own acolytes. He was a figure of myth more than one of flesh & blood", it seems Luke & Ben were looking for ancient Jedi lore.
- This also means that later, Luke did not exile himself on Ahch-To for a long time. And there's something on Ahch-To that's keeping Luke there after the destruction of his Jedi Academy. Give or take, less than 6 years.

 

I want him to survive. I'm saying I don't see a way where there will be sufficient tension if he and Rey are just destroying everyone. Somehow the villains need to get a significant upper hand that keeps our heroes busy or else I suspect Luke will be deemed to powerful to last to the end of all this.

 

Guesses:

Luke is training Ben and they are on their quest to find cool Jedi lore and ancient knowledge. Along the way, perhaps this Snoke business blows up at some point. Luke has become so intent on finding new knowledge and finish Ben's training, that he's not interested in dealing with Snoke at the moment. He feels it's more important to compete the training. Ben wants to help his family/friends and sets out to deal with it against Luke's instructions. Much like how Luke gave up his own training to help his friends, it was an obvious trap. Ben is very unprepared, and meets Snoke and instead of denying his offer, he's seduced by it. "Vader should have ruled the galaxy, take his place. They all know its your destiny". Ben falls to the dark side and is named Kylo Ren.

Maybe to help out his fall, there are other factors involved:
a: this is where he learns the Skywalker family secret and is enraged that he wasn't told about it.

b-1 the Solo tragedy that rips mom and dad a part comes in play. Perhaps they had another kid -one we haven't been told about just yet - and they died. Ben/Kylo, who never really bonded with mom and dad but did with his sibling, fells the loss deeply.

b-2 Luke's wife, or some other new jedi, church of the force member - senses the coming darkness and academy slaughter, and sends Rey away to be protected. Somehow...wipes her memories.

c: Kylo returns to destroy to academy.

d: Just as the darkness called out to Kylo, Luke hears something calling to him. Perhaps loosing Kylo (as well as his other nephew/niece/daughter/etc) causes him to journey to Arch-to to learn what's going on there and why it's calling to him.

 

I believe if Rey was in Jakku at a very young age, she couldn't possibly be sent away during the six year gap between "Bloodline" and TFA. She was sent away much earlier. But why? Is she really Luke's child or is she the presumed dead sibling of Kylo that somehow ended up in Jakku and therefore her 'death' is the Solo family tragedy that teared the family apart?

Anyways, I want Luke to survive in the sequel trilogy. He would be the key to defeating Snoke and the FO in this trilogy. He's Luke Skywalker, hero of the original trilogy, damn it! Don't turn him into Ben Kenobi.

 

I think the villains will have the upper hand in 8. I want to see a very powerful Luke, can't see that being a bad thing.

 

I pray you are right.

the same for me.

 

So let me get this straight, its ok for luke to kill billons of people on the death star and its ok for luke to murder the knight of ren without hesitation ,yet luke is going to force this stupid philosophy that somehow the precious snowflake skywalker ben solo is of limits and needs to be saved .

 

1. Some doubts that on the "military target" called Death Star were billions of soldiers. Maybe some thousand. Anyway a military target
2. Murder the Knight of Ren. Does he?, If so, so what - They attack, they lose. If they do not attack they do not get killed - we will see

Who says yet he wants him to be saved?

 

and if he wants him to be saved, it may be for the sake of his sister. Don't underestimate the value of family.

 

That's what I was thinking too.
Btw. according to last rumors Leia was going to confront Ben, this is something I've always said. If Ben is going to be redeemed then Leia will (IMO) play a large role.

 

But now the actresses has passed away . Will they replace her

 

It depends on what she does in Episode 8. If they can 'write her out' of the story for EP9, I think they will do that instead of replacing her with CGI or a new actor. If they can't avoid a big role in EP9, I'd actually prefer a new actor over the weird look of CG'ed humans.

 

Also from Bloodlines, Luke and Ben are cut off from communication with the rest of the galaxy when word of Leia's heritage goes public. I am convinced that this was the final straw in Ben's seduction to the Dark Side. Snoke was already in contact with Ben without his family knowing. We know the Dark Side can hide itself from the PT. We also know that Ben was already showing some dangerous tendencies.

Somehow, Snoke is able to get word to Ben that his grandfather was actually Darth Vader and convinces him his family has lied to him his entire life about who he really is. I believe at this point, Ben turns against the Jedi, murders his classmates while Luke is away and joins Snoke as Kylo Ren.

It is the opposite of Luke's hero's journey. Luke learns the truth about Vader and is repulsed by it. Ben embraces it.

 

Yup, definitely thinking they're aiming for a mirror of Luke, what he went through and the decisions he made. It's not an exact mirroring event for event, but how about this?

Luke was sent to be raised by his uncle, at the request of Ben Kenobi, who mentors him.
Ben was sent to be mentored by his uncle Luke, at the request of his parents who raised him.

Luke doesn't complete his training and rushes off to save his friends from Vader.
Ben doesn't complete his training and rushes off to save his friends from Snoke.

Luke is lured into a trap and learns the truth that Vader is his father.
Ben is lured into a trap and learns the truth that Vader was his grandfather.

Luke won't accept the truth at first.
Ben readily accepts the truth at first.

Luke defies the offer and escapes the Empire.
Ben accepts the offer and joins the FO.

Luke returns to his former mentor who explains the truth, and doesn't feel betrayed by his mentor's POV lie. Can feel the good in Vader.
Ben returns to his former mentor who explains the truth, and feels betrayed his his mentor's POV lie. Can feel the bad in Vader.

Luke returns to the Rebels, saves his friends, and later confronts his father.
Ben returns the First Order, destroys his friends at the academy, and later confronts his father.

Luke is tempted by the dark side but doesn't kill his own father. Remains on the light side.
Ben is tempted by the light side and kills his own father Remains on the dark side.

Post ROTJ - Luke completes his training alone, by traveling and learning about the force.
EP 8- Kylo completes his training by Snoke

 

Rian Johnson mentioned reading Carl Jung, among others, in anticipation of VIII and IX. Following his recent comments regarding what's up with Luke and his desire to make that believable given Luke's hardships and power, I found this passage from one of Jung's essays that seemed potentially like an inspiration for the idea of Ach-Too and the first Jedi temple. Jung wrote this following increased self-awareness of the modern man basically realizing how messed up society really is and will be for a very long time. It's something he noted in his subjects following World War I.

I can imagine Rian being fascinated by this and Luke as the total embodiement of this increased self awareness of the world. Note the section bolded. Here's the quote:

And...

What's my interpretation?

Luke will be very reluctant to train Rey initially. I wouldn't be surprised if Yoda and Ben are also struggling to motivate him in ways that used to work. He's older, wiser, more powerful and frustrated with this cycle of violence that seems to follow him. He's wondering how other masters have dealt with this responsibility. Where can he go next? What is he missing? The laziest among us will call VIII Luke's mid-life crisis phase and that's okay but I think Rian wants to explore this psychological terrain more thoroughly even than Kasdan did and he obviously was the genius responsible for working in Luke's fear of becoming his own father in TESB, which was obviously a big psychological theme there. Right down to seeing his own face in Vader's mask. In Raiders Indiana Jones' hat was a comfort blanket for a character with serious phobias. Nothing like that had been done in ANH so tackling those concepts in a family friendly adventure took guts. I think Rian will explore this for a while with Luke in VIII. He may even work in some mild PTSD and minor flirtations with Sith knowledge that he's fighting off. Not because he's bad. Only because he's curious and wondering "What next?"

It will be Rey that gives Luke new purpose and the internal questions he's trying to answer with external knowledge and solitude will be relaxed with some well-deserved internal healing and love.

 

Good stuff.

I would bet that added to Luke's crisis, is that not only is he alone in self-imposed solitude, is that fact that he is the ONLY one left anywhere he goes. The Last Jedi. I really think his choice to stop his training and rush to save his friends in Empire, have yielded long-term unknown consequences, that he only realizes in hindsight. At the time, the only negative reaction was realizing the horrible truth of his own father. Although he beat the temptation to join Vader, he thought he escaped any real consequences. Sure, he might be well learned now, or maybe not, we don't know. We all thought he made the right choice in the matter, but what if all along, hidden under the choice he made, was the wrong decision; that he never completed his training.

When he was leaving Degobah, Yoda and Ben both told him so:

Yoda: If you end your training now - if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did - you will become an agent of evil.
Obi-Wan: Patience.
Luke: And sacrifice Han and Leia?
Yoda: If you honor what they fight for? Yes.

...

Yoda: [closes his eyes for a moment] Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.
Luke: I've got to go to them.
Yoda: Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could; but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.

...

Yoda: Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.
Obi-Wan: That boy was our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.

In ROTJ, Luke returns and Yoda tells him he has all he needs to complete his current task, and that once he confronts Vader he'll be a Jedi. He tells him to pass one what he has learned. At the end of ROTJ, Luke proves himself right; that his father could be brought back. He learned that attachments can be good, in balance. As Luke looks at the ghosts of Obi-wan, Yoda and his father, he smiles knowing he won. But what if, as Yoda already knew ... matters are still worse. Luke, only half-trained, has to do all of this on his own and will have a difficult time doing so. Saving his father may have been the quick and easy path, just as saving his friends was, it ended up right, but with more consequences. Yoda knew that Luke would have to take the long road now.

 

Interesting your post is, contemplate on it I must

 

hmmm, never saw this before and it seems a deleted scene from ROTJ. Luke as a prisoner of the rebels?

 

Photoshop???

 

not sure, or a promo shot?